December 4, 2001
"Come on." Beau urged, nuzzling in closer as they sat in Julie's bed.
He was close enough that she could smell the beer and wintergreen on his breath; the sweat on his hair that needed to be washed.
.
Beau was nice.
Beau came from West Virginia coal money, and always held doors, and had a charming accent.
He played rugby, and liked to travel, and generally had good taste in books.
Unlike some of her less successful relationships, Beau had gone the entire two months without cheating on her, failing out of school, or getting kicked out for accidentally setting a building on fire.
Beau was, in other words, exactly the kind of guy she'd imagined that Dartmouth would be full of, and now that she had him in her bedroom, she wasn't about to complain.
.
But this wasn't the time.
.
"What? I'm trying to watch." She rebuffed, scooting away from his advances as she turned up the volume on the television.
"It's boring."
"It's my best friend." She protested, her eyes never veering from the television.
.
Beau chuckled as he learned back against her pillow, noting that the guy on TV was not only male, but also appeared to be a good several inches taller than any of the other men standing nearby.
Some friend.
.
"Not to make assumptions, but shouldn't your best friend have longer hair? Maybe be wearing a dress or something?" He pointed out, not unaware that he'd seen pictures of this 'friend' scattered in frames throughout her apartment, the two always wrapped in one another's embrace.
"Pig."
"I'm just saying."
.
Tonight we honor one of the greatest players in Minnesota history. We recognize not only his contributions on the ice, but the incredible determination and courage he has shown since-
Beau sat back digging a bit of dirt out from under his fingernail, while Julie stared at the screen, entranced.
.
She knew that Adam was doing well, but still.
This was like nothing had happened.
He stood tall, his shoulders back as he walked to the podium. He had his jersey on over a bengal stripe oxford and tie; the blue stripes a nice compliment to his coloring.
As the camera zoomed in, she noticed that his hair had grown out just a tad, begging to be tousled, and his smile was as perfect as she remembered; the dark abyss replaced with a row of perfect white teeth. Even with a cane, he looked steady. Confident. Like the prep school prom king she remembered, all grown up.
He was going to be okay, she realized.
Better than okay.
"He really is unstoppable" She thought as he took to the podium, his voice never wavering as he looked out over the crowd.
"It means the world to be standing here right now." He informed the audience, the camera focused in on those same chiseled features that the local media had loved back in his high school days. "Both in the literal sense, but more importantly, in that you're all here. Listening to me. I never in a million years would have dreamed that so many people would care; certainly not outside of hockey-"
...
"So what are we doing after this?" Beau asked, his breath hot on her neck as he leaned back in, his hand working its way up the back of her shirt to unclasp her bra as she remained focused on the television.
"Nothing if you won't hush and let me watch."
I feel tremendously fortunate to have grown up in this great state. To have had the opportunity to play for Minnesota. I don't think there's a kid around here who didn't dream of suiting up in the maroon and yellow one day-
"Can you at least give me a handjob?" Beau urged.
Julie ignored him as he reached for the belt of his jeans.
Unclasping it, he worked his pants and underwear down to his knees, hoping that if his pants no longer stood in the way, she'd at least service him while drooling over the dumb knob on TV.
"Dude goes to frickin' Minnesota." He reminded himself, trying to chase away his own insecurities about the situation.
"Shush. I'm trying to watch."
"What? I'm horny."
"So?"
"So you can't leave me like this." He argued, his cock now out in full display as he lay across her bed.
.
Julie never even looked over, still more entranced by Adam's jersey retirement ceremony than anything Beau had to say. As she watched in awe, Beau's own frustration with the situation built: Here he was, laying beside her with his dick out, and she was still more interested in the guy on television than his own needs.
He throbbed with rage just thinking about it. U of M was a school full of frozen pig farmers, and yet somehow, this washed up jock was more important than him.
Reaching for her hand, he tried to guide it down to his member, hoping that would make his desires a little more obvious. Hoping that she'd finally realize how stupid she was being.
.
Instead, Julie stood up and yanked his pillow out from under him, sending his head crashing into the wooden headboard below.
.
"Yeah. Yeah I can." She reminded him, now standing over his pantsless body as he rubbed the back of his head.
"What the hell?"
"That's what you get for being a jerk."
"Psycho bitch."
"Get out."
"Fine. Go fuck some loser who'll never leave Minnesota." He shouted, putting his pants back on. "Maybe you can go to Walmart together. Go ice fishing and fry cheese curds afterwards."
"At least I won't be begging my cousin for a blowjob."
To all of the people who've stood beside me-sometimes literally-I wish I had the words to thank you. I'm humbled to be here right now; to have received the support I have from all of you. I know I don't deserve it, but words will never express the gratitude that I have for every prayer or kind word that has been directed my way.
"You might still be forgetting one little problem." Adam reminded Charlie, plucking a grape from his plate that he hadn't yet dissected. "From what I recall, people usually like having coaches who have at least most of their basic abilities intact.
"Like, they aren't expecting Crosby, but the ability to sit up unassisted tends to be viewed favorably."
.
The Eden Hall discussion continued, Charlie finally bringing up the assistant coach topic.
.
It wasn't that he wanted to work with Adam. Far from it.
It was just that in recent years, the rivalry with Shattuck St. Mary's had grown one-sided, and as Eden Hall slashed budgets, a vicious cycle had been set in place.
Recruiting classes were solid, but Charlie knew that at this point, they were riding on reputation alone.
As soon as that reputation faded, he was going to looking at foreclosure, and Josh was going to be qualifying for a lot of financial aid come college. If he wanted to continue his habit of eating three square meals a day, he knew something needed to change, and Adam was the kind of person who could make that happen.
Besides, it didn't exactly sound like his old friend had anything better going on.
.
"Heh, it's not peewees. They already know how to skate and hold a stick."
"Yeah, but..."
Charlie grew quiet for a moment, looking Adam up and down. Not just at the cane and uneven shoulders; at the extra weight that had unceremoniously settled around his middle, but at those intense blue eyes, and the set of those patrician features.
"Dwayne's right. You're the sort of person people listen to."
"You want to try telling that to my kids?" Adam laughed, taking another drink.
"I might try telling that to Will or Caroline." Charlie joked, thinking back to their glory days when he and Adam both still had the world ahead of them. "But I've seen the coaches yell at Tucker-no way he's listening to anybody."
Adam sighed.
"Yeah, I'm afraid that one's going to be getting yelled at by a correctional officer a time or two by the time it's all said and done."
"Solid stick handler, though."
"Yeah."
"He's a goon, but not for lack of talent. I think he just really likes hitting people."
"Yeah, that seems to be a real hobby of his..." Adam agreed quietly as he thought back the family therapist they saw twice a month; the one with a plush office in Eden Prairie and flow-y blouses. The one who seemed fond of phrases like 'intergenerational trauma'.
"Could be worse. Josh's latest hobby is getting things pierced."
"I thought that went out of style?"
Charlie shrugged.
"Weirdly enough, I don't think he's taking much of his fashion advice from dudes in Levis and Gucci loafers."
"His loss." Adam chuckled. "I like to think that I'm still pretty gangster."
"That is one thing that's stayed consistent over the years..."
"You laugh, but I'm guessing you've never ended up with four different family members in the same prison.
Julie turned and looked back at him, one eyebrow raised.
"Not all at the same time." He rushed to clarify. "That would be sad."
"I think it might be sad, regardless."
He nodded, the regret visible in his eyes.
"Yeah. It is."
"But, I suppose it is peak gangster." She giggled softly, giving his hand a squeeze as she sat there with her legs draped over his lap.
"I mean, I do what I can..."
December 6, 2001
"Well, you're not over him."
"What?"
Julie and Ashley sat at a table in the commons, picking over re-heated cafeteria food as Julie relayed the weekend's events with Beau. Other students milled about as Julie picked the croutons from her salad.
.
In Julie's mind, this was a straightforward matter: Beau was irrational, insensitive, and horny. She had done nothing wrong, and he was obviously out of his mind to even imply that she still had a thing for Adam, because she did not, even though she did talk to him every week, and did miss him a lot, and did sometimes wish that Minnesota weren't so far away.
But still, they were only friends.
.
"You talk about him like he's the second coming of Christ, mixed with an Abercrombie model."
"I do not."
"Uh huh. Yeah." Ashley laughed. "I'd like to see you share quite so many stories about anybody else."
"But we do have a lot of stories together."
Ashley twisted another bite of lo mein noodles around her fork, trying to think of any other person who Julie had mentioned even half as often as Adam.
.
A year and half of knowing Julie, and she was pretty sure that she could win of a quiz show of Adam trivia, despite having never met the guy. By now, she knew his favorite color, his favorite food, where he shopped, what he drove, and that he had a dime-sized birthmark near his belly button that Julie thought was really cute. She knew that he enjoyed winter, monogrammed his underwear, organized his closet by color, and that his favorite cereal was Cinnamon Toast Crunch.
Conversely, she wasn't sure that she could name all three of Julie's brothers.
.
"I'm just saying."
"Whatever. He has a girlfriend."
"Apparently one who's pretty cool with how often you two talk..."
Julie sighed, her patience thinning with the direction this conversation had taken.
"For good reason, since we're just friends."
"Uh huh. I'm just saying."
"It's not like that..."
"Yeah."
"It's not."
"Whatever you say."
"Piercings?"
"Yeah."
"What all does he have pierced?"
After listening to Charlie and Adam talk, Kenny and his wife looked back and forth at one another; this one aspect of parenting that they hadn't yet thought through.
Linh Wu smiled, nervously patting her husband's thigh as she assured herself that their first child was already excelling in the 1-year old class at preschool; that he didn't seem to have any unusual interest in adding holes to his body.
.
Of the bunch, Charlie had been the first to become a father, albeit of the unplanned variety. His lassaiz faire approach to condoms had cost him any hopes of playing the minors after college, and set him down the first in his string of failed marriages.
Now dealing with an ill-tempered 16 year old, his life was like a horrifying Vision of Christmas Future for those whose children were still part of the Peppa Pig demographic.
.
Charlie sighed, the full list changing every time he saw Josh.
"Ears. Lips. Both eyebrows.
"That I know of. I'm not really planning to ask about the rest."
"Is that...a thing kids are doing now?" Kenny's wife asked, six months pregnant and staring down at her plate of food resting atop her belly.
"It's better than his friend who's taken up DIY tattooing."
"I didn't know you could do that."
"I don't recommend doing that. It's safe to say nobody is going to pay for his services."
Adam laughed; the closest of the crew to having to worry about such issues.
.
For all of his failures as a parent, so far, neither son had taken up body modification. A small victory in the grand scheme of things, but an important one, no less. Especially important for a family's image that had already been so battered by the patriarch's mistakes.
"This is making me feel oddly better about my own idiots."
"Oh don't worry. They've got plenty of time." Charlie assured him.
"Thanks."
"You're very welcome. I've got all the faith in the world that they'll ditch their khakis any day now."
"They better not."
"Oh, they will. With you and Laura, they will."
"I hate you."
"I think that's what's missing from all of your family photos." Charlie pointed out. "There need to be some piercings and sleeve tattoos to break up the pastels. It'll really add visual interest."
"Those sonsabitches are going to be paying for their own college if they even think about it.
"Of course, technically they're going to be paying for their own college anyway, because I'm broke as hell. But still."
January 1, 2002
"Oh my gosh! I'm so happy for you!" Julie squealed, doing her best to hide her own disappointment as she looked out over the snow from her parents' back deck.
Soupy clouds blanketed Bangor that morning, turning the entire world grey. So thick was the fog that the neighbor's houses seemed to disappear, leaving her all alone in the universe. Though she was hardly the superstitious type, even Julie couldn't help but feel that a falling sky was an inauspicious start to the new year.
And then of course there was this.
.
It wasn't that it was particularly surprising, and it wasn't that Laura didn't seem like a nice girl.
It was just that, well...they were only 20. And a lot had happened in the past year. And, of course, Laura wasn't her.
Not that that was supposed to matter of course.
.
"And she liked the ring?"
"You and Connie were right about the white gold."
"Good."
Julie paced the back deck, re-frozen snow crunching under her feet.
.
She could think of worse people; worse circumstances.
Laura had stayed with him through a lot. Probably more than Julie could have. It seemed safe to assume that she was with him for the right reasons.
Plus, they looked nice together in a neat, logical way.
.
They probably were the kinds of people who could discuss hospital coffee expenditures and the importance of compounding interest over breakfast; maybe not one of the qualities Julie most appreciated about Adam, but a shared commonality. A shared commonality that was more important now that he no longer had hockey.
.
It was just that there was so much more to life.
She remembered the time in eleventh grade when she convinced him to dye his hair blue, and the time they decided to have sex on his parents' roof. She remembered their fall homecoming dance at the country club, and how they somehow talked one another into streaking across the golf course.
It was hard to imagine Laura doing those things.
It was hard to imagine Laura pushing him to talk to different people, or appreciating his goofy imagination, or reminding him that a world existed beyond Minneapolis' western suburbs. It was hard to imagine her encouraging anything other than the status quo.
With her, Ashley's predictions felt all too real. It was easy to see them becoming the kinds of people who never left their gated community; the kinds of people who vacationed in the same two places every year, and really enjoyed browsing the showroom at Ethan Allen, and dreaded dinners downtown because 'there are just so many weird people in the city these days'.
.
"And you're like, 100% sure she's the one, right?"
"I mean, I guess so." Adam shrugged, sitting back at his apartment with a glass of gin in hand, staring at the television. "I like her, and she said yes."
"So romantic."
"Heh. It's not like there's a line around the block of girls wanting to marry me. I'm not exactly having a hard time weeding through the options."
I wish that you saw yourself the way everybody else does...
The way that I do.
"I just...I want you to do what's right for you." Julie reminded him softly, looking out at the winter fog. "You're one of my best friends, and I want you to have like, an awesome life."
"Well thank you."
"And congratulations. On everything."
"Thanks."
"And uh, don't sell yourself short. I suspect there are a lot of girls out there who would love to have someone like you."
"Heh, thanks."
"There are."
There really are.
"You're the best, Julie."